Huckabee pans Daniels' 'truce'

Mike Huckabee on Friday trashed fellow Republican Mitch Daniels's proposal that the party call a "truce" on social issues.

In a statement provided to POLITICO, the former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate scolded Daniels for looking at social issues as "bargaining chips" and "political."

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"The issue of life and traditional marriage are not bargaining chips nor are they political issues. They are moral issues," Huckabee said in response to Daniels, the governor of Indiana. "I didn’t get involved in politics just to lower taxes and deficit spending, though I believe in both and have done it as a governor. But I want to stay true to the basic premises of our civilization."

Daniels proposed the truce in an interview with The Weekly Standard in a recent laudatory cover story on the Indiana governor and his possible for president in 2012.

In his statement, Huckabee referenced the article and later called out Daniels by name.

"Apparently, a 2012 Republican presidential prospect in an interview with a reporter has made the suggestion that the next president should call for a 'truce' on social issues like abortion and traditional marriage to focus on fiscal problems," Huckabee said. "In other words, stop fighting to end abortion and don’t make protecting traditional marriage a priority."

"For those of us who have labored long and hard in the fight to educate the Democrats, voters, the media and even some Republicans on the importance of strong families, traditional marriage and life to our society, this is absolutely heartbreaking. And that one of our Republican 'leaders' would suggest this truce, even more so," said Huckabee, a social conservative who is weighing another presidential run.

"Gov. Daniels is a personal friend and a terrific governor, and I’m very disappointed that he would think that pro-life and pro-family activists would just lie down," he added.